6. Shoegaze Compilations: Feed Me With Your Bliss, Soft As Warm But Snow Inside, and Kaleidoscope Cries. This was the biggest surprise of 2010 for me. The story: While flipping through the dollar bin at my local record store, I came across these generic plastic sleeves with home-burned CD’s inside that had something like “Shoegaze Comp 1″, “Shoegaze Comp 2″, etc scrawled across each in sharpy marker. Yes, I was skeptical but hey, they were a dollar each and I love me some Shoegaze so I picked up all three. Turned out to be a great decision. From the small amount of information I can find online, they are part of a series of shoegaze compilations that cover various eras of the genre. Each disc comes with around 20 songs by a range of ‘gazers from the headliners like My Bloody Valentine and Ride to bands like Super Eight, Veronica Lake, and Charlottes who had never even crossed my radar before. There are a few duds but overall, there are some incredible tracks on these that really demonstrate the range of the genre (which I tried to capture in the playlist below). A great find that’ll keep me hunting for LP’s by these bands for years. A few of my favorites:

“Senorita” — Superdrag, Stereo “360 Sound” (1994)

“Waiting” — The Ropers, S/T (1995)

“Interference” — Disco Inferno, In Debt (1995)

“Rise & Fall” — Flying Saucers, ?

“She Moves Me” — The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Methodrone (1995)

“Letters” — Super Eight, ?